Stroke is the leading cause of disability among adults in the United States. Dysphagia has been reported to impact as many as 65% of acute stroke patients. Dysphagia has a negative impact on long-term functional outcome, and increases the risk of under nutrition and pneumonia, both of which have been related to increased mortality. Early identification of dysphagia in stroke survivors has been shown to have a direct benefit for reduced morbidity and mortality. Early treatment for dysphagia in stroke patients has been shown to improve swallowing ability, reduce dysphagia-related morbidity and to improve nutritional status. Therefore, early identification of dysphagia in the stroke survivor can have a significant impact not only on the patient's survival and quality of life, but also on the use of health care resources and associated costs.
Currently, identification of dysphagia in patients with acute stroke is accomplished via screening protocols early in the post-stroke admission period. Although several clinical investigators have offered a variety of dysphagia screening protocols, none have developed a sufficiently valid and inexpensive dysphagia screening method for patients in the acute phase of stroke. Furthermore, no consensus method has emerged regarding the most effective screening tool. Finally, available evidence suggests that no published screening protocol has reported adequate sensitivity and specificity to function as an effective dysphagia screening tool in stroke.
In view of the above discussion, it can be appreciated that it would be desirable to have a system and method for identifying dysphagia.